Amazon purchases Kindle Fire text-to-speech tech provider

Amazon announced earlier today the acquisition of IVONA Software, the company that provides the text-to-speech technology in its Kindle Fire tablets.

Outside the TTS, the tech also powers the "Voice Guide" and "Explore by Touch" features.

IVONA also offers separate TTS products to thousands of developers and business customers.

"IVONA's exceptional text-to-speech technology leads the industry in natural voice quality, accuracy and ease of use. IVONA is already instrumental in helping us deliver excellent accessibility features on Kindle Fire, including Text-to-Speech, Voice Guide and Explore by Touch," added Dave Limp, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. "The IVONA team shares our passion for innovation and customer obsession, and we look forward to building great products to deliver world-class voice solutions to customers around the world."

"For more than ten years, the IVONA team has been focused on creating innovative text-to-speech technologies,"said Lukasz Osowski, CEO and co-founder of IVONA. "We are all thrilled that Amazon is supporting our growth so that we can continue to innovate and deliver exceptional voice and language support for our customers."